Faith-based thought vs thinkers Re:[extropy-chat]IntelligentDesign: I'm not dead yet

[Russell Wallace]

On 1/30/06, Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:

> I don't know if it is right or moral that you should start your chain of
> reasoning from beliefs rather than axioms though.
>

In the context of values, things that are not empirical propositions,
"belief" and "axiom" mean the same thing.

The people on the other side of my metaphorical line in the sand are not
those who merely hold axioms instead of beliefs - those are two words
denoting the same thing in this context. They are those who claim that
standards in art are merely a class-based conspiracy, that truth is just a
social construct, that "good" has no meaning beyond "wins out in the
Darwinian struggle". (None of these are straw men. I've seen all of them
claimed repeatedly, and not by adolescents going through a rebellious phase,
but by people with strings of college degrees.)


> *You say above that reason cannot entire replace faith. Okay but if you
> believe in something like that "international law is an existential risk" I
> wonder if you can be moved away from any of your belief which I might find
> to be themselves anti-extropic, by reason.*
>

Certainly. The claim of mine that you quote is an empirical one -
potentially verifiable or falsifiable - and is therefore in the domain of
reason; I'm quite happy to hear arguments against it.

- Russell
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